The things we do!

Soap and Isaac could supply. It made J. J.'s eyes glisten to see
those lovely gimcracks of art; those smooth mill-boards, those
slab-tinted sketching-blocks, and glistening rows of colour-tubes lying
in their boxes, which seemed to cry, "Come, squeeze me." If
painting-boxes made painters, if sketching-stools would but enable one to
sketch, surely I would hasten this very instant to Messrs. Soap and
Isaac! but, alas! these pretty toys no more make artists than cowls make
monks.
As a proof that Clive did intend to practise his profession, and to live
by it too, at this time he took four sporting sketches to a printseller
in the Haymarket, and disposed of them at the rate of seven shillings and
sixpence per sketch. His exultation at receiving a sovereign and half a
sovereign from Mr. Jones was boundless. "I can do half a dozen of these
things easily in a morning," he says. "Two guineas a day is twelve
guineas--say ten guineas a week, for I won't work on Sundays, and may
take a holiday in the week besides.


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